Response by Klaus D. Hoppe

In appreciation of the discussion remarks I should try to respond as succinctly and thoroughly as possible.

Partial identification with Nazi-authorities is outstanding in depressed survivors; agressive victims were protected from such a regression mainly due to a firm ego-ideal. They are consequently comparable to the political prisoners whom Dr. Edith Jacobson studied. Aggressive “spite” reactions in camp or jail represent a starting point for hate-addiction.

Dr. Friedman's case history of the young victim illuminates connections between concentration camp existence and schizophrenic and psychosomatic disorders. Regarding the, “astonishingly low incidence of suicide” survivors frequently reported that co-inmates killed themselves running into the electric barbed wire. Besides, we might consider the undramatic form of chronic suicide consisting of loss of self-preservation and indifference toward death. Only constant care and comfort from a relative or close friend prevented several inmates from falling into such a state. As Luchterhand said, “the pair was the basic unit of survival.”

I agree with Dr. Niederland regarding the importance of survivor guilt but I cannot consider it the most pathogenic single factor. From a genetic viewpoint, guilt feelings are characteristic of the phallic level; a regression to pre-oedipal stages is, however, distinctively noticeable in most victims. Despair, anxiety, lack of self-esteem and apathy are also found in former inmates without survivor guilt as well as in Jewish people who lived in illegality or under discrimination. The symptom-free interval was often not only relative but rather a phase of psychic suffering in secrecy due to a deep distrust of the world around.

Finally, I should like to respond to Dr. Chodoff. The differentiation between chronic reactive depression and chronic reactive aggression is mainly based on the observation that aggressive survivors are not suffering from a narcissistic regression. Unlike Dr. Chodoff,